Post No. 12 Ruthless editing!

First I had to find out how to get a word count from Open Office!

That done, how to set about reducing my story from 999 words to 500?

First I analysed how I set about my initial idea for the piece. We were asked to randomly turn on the radio and make note of what we first heard and use that as inspiration for a story.

I'm afraid that an item on the news involving tax avoidance did not inspire me at all, even though I feel quite strongly about it. However that was the task so I sat and thought about it.

1st thought - Multi-nationals e.g. Starbucks
2nd thought - An old soldiers disgust at such behaviour (my dearly departed Dad springing to mind)
3rd thought - Contrast Starbucks with an established family firm.

With that I began and as usual my characters turned up and introduced themselves and the story told itself. Brucciani's is a real place, slightly embellished to suit my purposes.

How does one go about editing ruthlessly? An odd word here and there, a sentence or two or a whole sale re-write attempting to put the essence of a paragraph into one sentence.

Next move I've thought of is to reduce my story to a simple abstract or scenario. Boy meets girl. Girl ditches boy. Boy gets motorbike. Boy gets killed. Girl bereft. That sort of thing.

Tax Avoidance

A great grandfather is babysitting his 6 year old great granddaughter. It's a cold day. The child wants hot chocolate and suggest Starbucks.  Great Grandfather is disgusted by their past tax avoidance and suggests going to an old established family firm. The child is entranced with the new place and its owner. The subject of tax avoidance continues above the child's head and comprehension. She is left to her own devices and gets messy.

74 words

That suggests I need about 6 -7 paragraphs to get the correct word count. Surely Dickens didn't write like this. It feels so uncreative.